2017 Skate America

Lake Placid, NY

2017 Skate America

The last spots for the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating
Final are on the line at Bridgestone Skate America this week
in Lake Placid, NY. Among those competing for a spot are
two-time World Champions Meagan Duhamel & Eric
Radford (CAN), two-time World medalists Maia
Shibutani & Alex Shibutani (USA),
Four Continents Champion Nathan Chen (USA),
and U.S. Champions Ashley Wagner and Karen Chen.

Skate America is the sixth and last event in the ISU Grand
Prix of Figure Skating series that culminates in the Final
in Nagoya, Japan next month. A total of 57 skaters/couples
from 9 ISU members compete in Lake Placid. Lake Placid
is a scenic, but remote, town in the Adirondack mountains of
New York and was the site of the 1932 and 1980 Olympic
Winter Games.

Though the last competition of the series, several slots for
the final are in play in each event.

LADIES

A win by Polina Tsurskaya (RUS) or Ashley Wagner (USA) gets
them to the final. A second place will rely on tie
breakers to make it to the final. Karen Chen (USA) and
Gabreille Dalelman (CAN) are not in contention to make the
final, but have the potential to be spoilers for Tsurskaya or
Wagner.

MEN

Nathan Chen (USA), Sergei Varonov (RUS), Boyang Jin (CHN)
and Adam Rippon (USA) all have the potential to make the
final, even with placements as low as fourth. Javier
Fernandez (ESP), Misha Ge (UZB) and Alexander Samarin (RUS)
are all at risk of dropping out of the top six finishers in
the series.

PAIRS

Meagan Duhamel & Eric Radford (CAN), Aljona Savchenko &
Bruno Massot (GER) and Xiaoyu Yu & Hao Zhang (CHN) all have
good chances to make the final, with top three finishes at
Skate America. The teams currently fourth though sixth
in the standings are all at risk of being pushed out of the
final.

DANCE

Maia Shibutani & Alex Shibutani (USA) and Anna Cappellini &
Luca Lanotte (ITA) can make the final with top two
finishes here, and even with a third place finish the
Italians will make the final. Ekaterina Bobrova &
Dmitri Soloviev (RUS) and Kaitlyn Weaver & Andrew Poje (CAN)
are both at risk of being pushed out of the final.

Unlike the other Grand Prixs, Skate
America is spread over three days of competition instead of
two, allowing somewhat lighter days on Friday and Saturday,
but a longer day on Sunday, with two final rounds during the
day, and the exhibition in the evening.